Chapter 1: The great disturbance

Far from where any life form had traveled, light years from any planet or star, the universe's center and birth of its creation, dwells...nothing. It isn't that that part of the cosmos is bare from any space anomalies or other recognizable characteristics, but it's completely plain of anything. A true depth, a true nothing surrounded by everything. If one were to look at this strange and horrifying gorge, they may drive themselves mad due to the empty space being a great contradiction to everything they comprehend and understand, so seeing this void in person would be too much to hold on to.

But if one were to try and imagine it, they can obtain some vague and simple idea of what it looks like. To do this, they would need to imagine a 10×10 foot detailed painting of the universe that would make even the most skilled artist envious, but for some odd reason in the middle of the masterpiece there is an exposed canvas around 1 inch in diameter. The painting is not completed, it's missing a small piece, showing a small space and if looked at long enough, the illusion of it growing may occur and it starts to turn into a pit. That is what this strange thing was compared to the universe, a missing piece as if it was ripped out. A truly maddening concept.

The emptiness continued to lay in the center of all creation, unmoving yet unchained. The aura it gave off and the presence it radiated was intolerable to be around for even the shortest of time frames. But, suddenly without any warning or reason, the abyss...shook, moved and breathed. Within the bottomless cavern, a large blood red eye opened. The eye stared into the black, purple and red vacuum of space with unbearable intensity and from the eye a red liquid spilled with such heat that would even melt the suns. The entire eye was red except for the pure black pinpoint pupil that held and reflected all the horrors and terrors that lingered and crawled in every inch of the dimensions and nightmares of the unfortunate and the insane. Once the eye fully opened a shock wave was sent throughout the universe, with dreadful might.


Planet Earth: Three years after the Enter the Florpus.

It was like any other day at the local 'Skool' during lunch in the cafeteria. Many of the students still tired from the early Monday morning had lazy expressions, and were occupying their time talking to each other, attempting to eat the so-called 'food' placed on their trays or looking at their phones. A few of them were already doing some of their homework given them from the previous classes also using their phones to help them do it quicker. As usual, two particular students five or so meters apart, were glaring at each other. One of them was named Dib Membrane, and ever since the 'joy to not so joy' incident three years ago his appearance had changed. For instance he was taller around the height level of his father's shoulder, but he was lanky and had a narrow frame, with a physique if that of a long distance runner. His clothes still looked the same, but were in more proportion with his new height. His glasses were less thick, and his unusual hair was less exaggerated.

Next to him was his younger sister, Gaz Membrane, who not only changed as she aged but also updated her style of clothing. She was taller, but still shorter than her brother, just below his shoulder. Living off of snacks and pizza, she had a more plump appearance, but not to the point where someone would refer to her as fat or chubby. She had the body of a young woman going through puberty, but at first it would be hard to tell due to the amount of clothes she was wearing. She had a green dress that just stopped at her thighs with a rabbit skull on the chest area, black baggy pants, black steeled toed boots, a grey hoodie and a dark black beanie. She had her skull necklace as well as skull ear piercings. Instead of glaring like her brother, she instead distracted herself with her Game Slave 4.

The student Dib was staring at from across the room wasn't really a student and more on a...foreign invader. He was not from Earth and instead was native from a planet called Irk and he was an invader, a type of soldier that goes to different planets to conquer them so they would become part of the Irken Empire, ruled by the Tallests, two Irkens that stand taller than the others. He had a rather pathetic and unconvincing disguise to make himself look like a human, but all he had on was blue contact lenses a wig that looks like the dorsal fin of a shark and a small fake hairs around the mouth to make look like growing facial hair, that's typical of a young teenager. His disguise, though obvious, was still somehow convincing enough to fool the entire world minus the two siblings across from him, with one of them, Dib, making it his life goal to expose the alien to the world to prove he isn't insane. Unlike the two across from him he hadn't gained any height or any form of physical change, which he hated. Being tall was a sign of purity and elegance on his planet so being once the same height as his enemy then becoming much shorter was infuriating. It was like he was being mocked.

The table next to Dib's left there was an unexpecting character that was glaring at both of the boys and occasionally Gaz. She was another Irken named Tak, who managed to end up back on Earth after it had returned to its place of origin restoring cosmic order to some extent. Earth moving around the galaxies had caused satellites to fall into its atmosphere crushing some houses, but no fatalities. Tak's broken down ship was also sucked back in and had kept a low profile for a month, before moving back, acting as a student. Despite being just as tall as she was when she was lost in space, she had a more up to date disguise that was much more convincing than Zim's, as she had a hologram to help her. She had a turtle neck that had the same colour and pattern of her old dress, black leggings and fuzzy boots. Her hair was longer and like Gaz, had piercings, albeit smaller and white. She still had a deep hatred for Zim for ruining her life twice now and now holds a distrust against Dib and Gaz for helping Zim all those years ago. The atmosphere between them was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Then it all stopped. Each student suddenly sat and stood still and had seized whatever activity they were doing. The students stopped. Dib stopped. Zim stopped. Tak stopped as well as Gaz who paused her game at the same time. Even the fly on the window turned as still as a statue. Fearful and frightened expressions were plastered on everyone's faces and the room was so quiet that if a pin were to be dropped, it would be so loud that many would cover their ears and the rest would flinch and jump. Dib slowly looked at Zim and carefully turned his head to see the rest of the cafeteria with an unsure expression, not daring to speak. It wasn't as if he couldn't, but it felt like he wasn't allowed to. Zim had done the same, slowly shifting his eyes and head, filled with a new feeling. He felt hot, but also cold, tired but also awake, drained, but also filled with energy, terrified but strangely relaxed. Usually when something spooked Zim he would jump and make an audible 'EH?', but right now he was uncharacteristically silent, just like the entire school or even world knows. Everyone was the same and everyone could feel it.

Something terrible was about to happen.

RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG!

The school bell suddenly cried out, scaring everyone, causing many to scream, fall out of their chairs and even a few to throw whatever they had on their person at the bell. Dib looked at Zim with suspicion, but then confusion when he saw that his suspect was just as lost as he was. He then looked to Gaz and Tak who also looked lost and frightfully bewildered. He then noticed that many students were quietly mumbling to themselves and others unsure if they wanted to disturbed the silence once again. Soon, they eventually had gotten up from their seats to leave.

Dib did the same. Then Zim, then Tak and then Gaz. As Gaz was moving towards the door beside Dib, she looked at her G.S.4 that was still paused. The screen was bright blue and vaguely transparent, barely showing the game character jumping in the air, ready to plunge his sword into the large rotted bore. The screen had 'continue', 'save', and 'quit' all in a row going down and at the top right the game device's battery was displayed as well as the current time. However the game had a unique feature and that was whenever the game was paused another time would appear right underneath, showing the exact moment when the game was paused.

11:30.20 AM

11:29.30 AM

Doing some calculation in her head from when the bell rang, when she stood up, and when she finished her mental mathematics and then remembering when the bell rings, the strange anomaly of when the world stood still only lasted for...30 seconds.

30 seconds, yet it felt much longer. She continued to stare at the screen when she noticed someone else looking at the clock to her left in the reflection. Looking behind her to her left, she saw Zim quickly turn away and had stopped walking on his tippy toes as he was still too short to see the game device normally. Gaz felt like she needed to scowl, but she didn't have the strength to do so. So she only decided to continue walking down the hall to her next class, separating from Dib, Zim and Tak. The rest of the three walked beside each other. Dib and Zim would occasionally attempt to scowl and glare at one another, but the new type of fear they felt still wouldn't allow them peace, even for a short time.

Walking into their class and taking their seats they all looked around the room and saw that all the students, instead of staring off into nothing, bug eyed and drooling, they looked down at their desks even when the teacher rose from behind the desk. The teacher, Ms. Bitters usually had a mean stare and crooked appearance, but today she seemed almost concerned and far less stiff. She must have felt it as well. For the rest of the day, the same question rattled within the consciousness.

What was that?